Articles in the Leadership Category

Fear runs rampant these days. It usually does when the economy stinks and folks are losing jobs. I’ve got something even more scary to tell you. That job you lost? Or that job someone you love lost? It’s not coming back. Things have changed forever which means you or we need to change too.
But change is scary!
Which is why we should all pay attention to Fear.less Magazine. It just launched with the first issue today. It’s free and it will serve you a healthy dose of courageous stories. Fear.less Magazine …

Here’s a 45-minute long recording of Seth Godin talking about how to become a linchpin, someone who is indispensable.
Download —> Seth Godin’s Linchpin Live Session
You should go buy a copy of Linchpin, Seth Godin’s latest bestseller. It will change your life. It changed mine.
I remember my favorite class in college, Art History 101. Dr. Janet Black asked us to define Art. Very challenging. Looking back, I did a terrible job.
In the book, Seth does a remarkable job at defining Art. His definition is unlike anything you’ve heard before. I won’t …

Successful people, consistently successful people, understand the difference between process and results. A recent article in the Boston Herald about Theo Epstein, the general manager of the Boston Red Sox, shows that Theo understands this principle well. It is the primary reason behind the consistent competitiveness of the Boston Red Sox since the beginning of the Epstein Era. I love this team more than ever because it has become such a model of scientific excellence, marketing genius, innovative management, and patient execution.
Are you judging your personal, professional, and organizational results on …

Everybody seems to be a “social media guru” these days. Like a real world sausage-fest, the “guru-fest” on Twitter and Facebook where four out of every five members claim to be some sort of ninja, jedi, maven, strategist or expert cannot possibly be a good thing. I exaggerate but echo chambers are not productive. What’s an earnest social media consultant to do?
Before you read on, you should know that I wrote this post only for those folks who are totally committed to the social media “industry” and intend to make a …

There are plenty of good pieces on the Internet about how to build a good board of advisors. Go ahead, Google them. There is one super post about why you shouldn’t bother to build an advisory board by the smart guys at 37Signals. Essentially, they’re saying that too many supposedly critical things are myths that keep you from building the company and products. But what if someone has approached you to be an advisor to his company? There aren’t very many pieces about how to be a good advisor. So how do you …

My first impression of Seth Godin upon meeting him was that he is an extraordinarily efficient person. You wouldn’t think of a “creative” as efficient in the sense that a supply chain manager, hamburger flipper, accountant, or the Octomom are efficient. But Seth conducted interviews with about thirty candidates for the SAMBA program in under three hours. He made up his mind on who fit perfectly soon after and, it turns out, he picked an amazing group.
How amazing? That remains to be seen. Everyone in the group was so remarkable, I …

You have to like Hank Paulson. The Treasury Secretary grew up on a farm in Illinois. Many leaders in American history learned the value of hard work while planting seed and harvesting crop. George Washington was a farmer. Thomas Jefferson was a farmer and envisioned our country as a republic of farmers with a strictly limited federal government. That was when agriculture dominated the economic composition of the United States. Since then, the original federation of thirteen states has grown to fifty while the percentage of the citizenry employed in …

Today marks the 233rd birthday of the United States Marine Corps. That’s right, the Marine Corps is older than the nation itself. Organized on November 10, 1775 in Tun Tavern, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Marines have been defending our lands since before the Declaration of Independence. I served in the Marine Corps as a basic rifleman – the most fundamental function of all Marines. Fond memories come to me November 10th of every year. It was in the Corps that I learned about leadership. I learned the true meaning of teamwork, not …

Have you ever wondered what could happen to the stock price of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) when its amazing CEO, Warren Buffett, is no longer able to captain the ship or passes away? This topic has swirled atop investors’ minds for at least a few years now and consistently keeps getting addressed by the Oracle of Omaha himself during Berkshire’s annual shareholder meetings. Last year, I sent my wife Cynthia to the shareholders’ meeting and she reported that the continuity or succession topic was one of the most widely talked about.
Let’s …